Author. 




Title 



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%xMkf$ leprt f at, JLbrofatr airtr at fame : 



SERMON 



PREACHED IN THE WEST CHURCH, BOSTON, 



On Stjndav, Nov. 19, 1854 



BY CYRUS A. BARTOL, 



• lrxtoi: .MrNisTKU. 



33i*futrU li» 3&equcst. 



BOSTON : 

CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 

111, Washington' Street 
1854. 




/i 



SERMON 

PREACHED IN THE WEST CHURCH, BOSTON, 

On Sunday, Not. 19, 1854. 

r' 

BY CYEUS A: BARTOL, 
i) 

JUNIOR MINISTER. 



33rfnteu l)» Request, 



BOSTON : 

CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 
111, Washington Street. 

1854. 






BOSTON: 

piunted by john wilson and son, 

22, School Street. 






SERMON. 



Gen. viii. 9 : — " But the dote found no best for the sole of her 

FOOT, AND SHE RETURNED INTO THE ARK." 

Any one who, at sea, has watched the birds fly from 
afar, to hover round his bark, especially some land- 
bird fluttering towards the mast, will not wonder that 
Noah's dove, however fleet and strong, should at 
length come wearily back, when she found that, 
wherever she turned, all was ocean. Then, if he him- 
self has been far and stayed long, it may occur to him 
that the little bird is an image of man, — that the 
dove, the chosen scriptural emblem of God's spirit, is 
a type also of the human soul. 

But is this, then, the state of the case for the tra- 
veller, — for the privileged, the perhaps envied, man 
who has had this splendid opportunity of beholding 
the world, — for the favored mortal, after long confine- 
ment, let loose to realize a thousand dreams and fulfil 
rorriantic hopes cherished from childhood, by setting 



his eyes on the multitude and procession of glorious 
objects that have danced before his imagination 1 Is 
he disappointed, after all, with the introduction for 
which he had longed ; fatigued with the magnificent 
show after which he had run ; and his appetite not 
satisfied at the table where he had crowded for a seat, 
and which all nature and art, and human society, and 
the monumental history of the race, had spread for his 
supply? 

"Without roundly answering such questions in a 
breath, I must note one fact, quite common to travel- 
lers, — their intense yearning for home, and their 
unspeakable and unparalleled delight to return. Few 
joys are vouchsafed, in this our lower lot, like that we 
feel, when, after any considerable absence, home comes 
again in sight. Yes, when the huge body of the sea, 
by whose broad girdle we had crept to the regions of 
the rising sun, again shifts eastward its convex bulk, 
and we ride over the banks and by the capes which 
the great continent we were bom on stretches forth in 
token of her protection to the navigator ; when, after 
those reaches of the briny waste, which, to the super- 
stitious and disheartened seamen of Columbus, seemed 
literally without end, the firm shore in some headland 
looms up, though dim and vague, to the wistful sight 
indescribably dear and precious, with its rugged, 
barren outline fixing a spell upon us exceeding that 



of English shaven lawns or brilliant Italian sunsets ; 
when, for the solitude, the solemn, peculiar, terrible 
loneliness of the sea, voiceless but for some rare 
trumpet through the whistling winds, and blank but 
for some glimmer of a sail that shines and fades on the 
horizon's edge, re-appears the white-winged, sociable 
flock of ships ; when, sailing above the bones of the 
majestic vessel and her ill-fated crew, and giving one 
shudder of sympathy as we stop to sound the depths, 
we then glide safely on, till the smoothness of the bay 
and the narrowing harbor takes the place of the tre- 
mendous pitch and plunge between the poles of the 
world of the monstrous Atlantic, — and the forts, like 
stony, stiff sentinels, with brazen dogs of war, lie 
asleep full in view at the nation's old, dear door-way ; 
ah ! and when roof and spire and dome, from Bunker 
Hill to the smoke of our chimney, reveal themselves, 
— there is a sensation in our being, transcending the 
effects of all foregoing splendors and sublimities, and 
which boyhood's unsophisticated sight of those seven 
wonders of the world its primer had told of could not 
equal. As our foot presses the ground, we feel as the 
dove did, when, from wheeling over boundless water, 
through the treeless sky, she lighted in the window 
of the ark. Our city is a lovely Zion to us. We 
clasp its whole circumference to our hearts. We are 
of David's mind about his Jerusalem. The very 



6 



stones are precious to us, and we love the dust 
thereof; nor is there a wall or corner, portal or pil- 
lar, be it friend's or stranger's, that does not find 
favor in our sight. Our own dwelling, with every 
gray look and weather-stain upon it, that seems to have 
mourned our desertion, and to have been long yearn- 
ing for its inmates, — who shall describe the transport 
of its living or even its inanimate welcome'? Our 
church, — the minister cannot tell, if the worshipper 
with him can, his emotions. The swell in the breast, 
instead of that on the sea ; the tears that answer to 
the stormy shower ; the low breathing of thanksgiving 
into which the gale has sunk ; the heaving and melt- 
ing of the whole nature after its struggle with the 
elemental forces, that, with snow and wind and cloud 
and rain, thoroughly sweep the floor of the creation, 
— testify that nothing beneath the sun, on this mate- 
rial stage, can match the interest of that scene, where- 
ever laid, however produced, in which the very bosom 
of man makes its confessions. 

But now wherefore is all this ? What does it sig- 
nify, that our greatest discovery in all the world, of 
worth and grandeur, should be precisely of that which 
was most familiar to us ; nay, of what we left behind 
us when we departed, and fancied perhaps we were 
tired of staying in ; that we should discover, not so 
much foreign cities, with lakes and forests and moun- 



tains, as our own homes, our kindred and acquaint- 
ances and friends, all rising to us in a new light of 
intenser meaning; nothing be so novel, exciting, attrac- 
tive, absorbing to the attention and curiosity of our 
whole mind and heart, as precisely what was most 
common and habitual in our experience; and no 
voyager, as he discerns yet untrodden islands or plants 
his nag on unclaimed continents, sensible of an 
ecstasy like that with which we see our ancient birth- 
right % Oh, veritable and sublime revelation from 
heaven in the social nature of man ! Oh, old and new, 
customary yet unpenetrated, superficial and fathom- 
less, mystery of human life ! Oh, strange and not 
understood source of joy and sorrow in the great 
deep of the human breast ! Oh, marvellous creative 
power of God, that can sink in the most ordinary 
realities and feelings of our existence a spring whose 
fulness all the other wells of nature cannot equal, 
whose freshness all the heat and dust and trample of 
years cannot crust over or quench ! 

What is this singular quality of our constitution, to 
fix the brand of discontent upon the most alluring 
prodigies, and put the kindling of desire into the trite 
circumstances of our lives'? It is none other than 
the simple heart and moral nature of man, which no 
travelling for pleasure and recreation, the world over, 
can quite satisfy. It is that we have a conscience to 



8 



be fed ; and neither Rome nor the Alps can feed it. 
It is that we have affections to be exercised ; and all 
the halls of Europe, with all the wild charms of the 
East, cannot furnish their objects. Ah, my friends ! 
this soul of ours is hard to entertain, when we 
seek to fill it with entertainment. It scorns to be 
conciliated with expeditions and blandishments, even 
infinite and numberless, in place of the forsaken 
offices of daily obligation. Truly it requires an enor- 
mous flattery. It takes up rivers and seas as a very 
little thing ; and all the pomps of the world are as a 
drop on the sponge to its devouring thirst. Thus the 
traveller, who had expected exemption from all toil 
and weariness, in unmingled and abounding rapture, 
is troubled with his soul to take care of and content, 
abroad as at home. The Gold Coast he sailed for 
turns to a sandy beach. A refugee from labors and 
pains, he finds himself under the same inveterate 
penalties ; and, what was most important for him to 
do before he started, he sees is most important still, — 
namely, to be sorry for his sins, and make his peace 
with God. So he shuts his lids upon the splen- 
dors of Paris and Dresden, is tired of Versailles and 
the Vatican, and, from jewelled chambers and vaults 
of lavish cost, longs to retire and adjust the serious 
claims of existence. Love and duty, the great bonds 
and underlying foundations of our thought and 



9 



action, necessities of life to a moral creature, first of 
all indispensable to be supplied, — ah ! they cannot 
find their scope in the spaces hung with worjks the 
most magnificent of human hands. They cannot 
gather their food from the heights sublime, where the 
mountain goats browze, or the patches of glittering 
snow, where the chamois, looking like spots in the 
sun, suck sustenance ; but only in the habitations and 
paths where human relationships grow, and the inter- 
course of friendly service goes on. 

One, by your bounty late a traveller, thankful for 
his opportunities, and cheerfully owning the indubita- 
table benefits of travel, comes then, nevertheless, 
gravely to declare here to-day, that he regards home 
as the most desirable condition of human life, the 
greatest achievement on earth of man, and the finest 
mercy of God. Believing that the wish of many for 
roving, which spreads a rosy color over the distant 
landscape, is a mistaken fancy, founded on false ideas, 
and needing to be chastened rather than indulged, he 
comes to say to those who may mourn their inability 
to sally forth, — You are better off at home, far bet- 
ter off in the manifold ties, you may regret, that hold 
you to your station, and will not let you go. Is your 
interest in things around you blunted? Sharpen it 
with your moral sense, and make it fresh with a more 
devoted heart. 



10 



I shall not be churlishly wanting in the particular 
praise and eulogy of whatever is favorable to human 
improvement in the traveller's career. Yet, in the 
general sentence and large decision, I hesitate not to 
affirm, that those are exaggerated estimates and over- 
sanguine expectations by which the crown of life is 
remotely sought in any change of place, and that the 
real good and joy is just to be at home. 

Yet truly to be at home, — what is it 1 It is not 
merely to dwell in chambers of wood and stone, to 
stay in one spot, to keep within city-limits, to pace a 
uniform track to and fro in the street, and move in a 
narrow circle of persons; but to have a sphere for 
the exertion of our powers, for discharging, through 
regular labors and by the manifestation of lofty and 
disciplined sentiments, the obligations of existence to 
the common blessing. For awhile, the traveller drops 
this fine and beautiful bondage of toil, in his business 
or profession, for the general good. Instead of look- 
ing after others, he looks out for himself, for his own 
amusement or benefit. He seeks to be stirred by this 
or that object, and astonished in one or another situa- 
tion. He stands to be thrilled by the flash of torrents, 
and roused with the roar of cascades. He gazes, for 
his own enchantment, from the top of mountains; 
pierces, after strange stimulus, into the sparkle of 
mines; walks through miles on miles of canvas, or 



11 



amid a population of marble, to entertain his eye and 
luxuriate his fancy; or, going from the sublime to 
the ridiculous, exercises his economic wit to drive 
bargains as to the sum for which all this glory is to 
be bought. The noble traveller will indeed somehow 
convert whatever he enjoys to others' welfare. But, 
if not noble, — and, when not noble, he is very mean, 
— then he covets only his own gratification. Some- 
times he loses a former love and loyalty which had 
inspired him, and falls from the grace of his child- 
hood and youth. With worldly wisdom, he becomes 
falsely wise to explode as follies the best practices 
and feelings of his foregoing life; in the hurry of 
his movements and adventures, leaves behind his 
Bible, and forgets his prayers; amid glare and cir- 
cumstance, despises the simple worship in which he 
was bred. He lets a superficial and taking glory, 
like the gaudy color of a candle, put out the daylight 
of the spiritual church. Perhaps he counts it a 
foreign and travelled dignity on his return to leave 
his once accustomed seat for devotion unoccupied; 
looks contemptuously at common men, who have not 
been so far as he has ; and then, of course, loses the 
thought of God, the Father of men, and deems 
the whole march of virtue and religion but the impo- 
sition of an empty show. 

Nay, the reckless traveller may miss the direct 



12 



objects of travel itself. If the animal nature in him 
be strong, you will see him going to the rich variety 
and pampering delicacy of the feast with more relish 
than to the treasures of the Louvre, or the passes of 
the hills ; if he be selfish and irritable, you will see 
him indulging with impunity, and borne unchallenged 
and miserably safe to moral ruin by the passions that 
had made him odious and sorely questioned in his 
own house. I am sorry to say it, but it is morally 
dangerous to travel; for the traveller's object, more 
than the citizen's, is himself. He is usually travel- 
ling, as to a proverb we call it, for pleasure. As he 
peers keenly out for his own advantage to compass 
best and cheapest all he is in search of, though the 
very top and flower of the outward universe be his 
pursuit, his character is peculiarly exposed ; and 
often, after a considerable period, growing dry and 
hard, plainly evinces that it has been taken out of 
that cool shelter of the domestic charities, which is 
the best garden in the world, to bake in the blazing 
sun. If one, then, fairly encounters all the liabilities 
of a long journey, makes and settles all the contracts 
of his way, greets and says farewell to the official 
multitude, runs the gauntlet of trial and exposure 
that stretches from one end of Europe to the other, 
and comes out heart-whole, with his simplicity uncor- 
rupted, his feelings fresh, and his innocence without a 



13 



stain ; with the warm gush still unobstructed of that 
double fountain that leaps at once to God and man ; 
keeping his old Sunday-feelings unhurt through the 
martial parade, theatric pomp, and sensual excess of 
continental life; contrary to the polluting proverb, 
among the Romans refusing to do as the Romans do, 
unless when the Romans do right; in fine, losing 
none of the inner health while he re-establishes 
that of the physical man, — I have sometimes 
thought he must be a wonder of excellent nature or a 
miracle of preserving grace. Were crossing the sea 
and sojourning in foreign lands a specific for wisdom 
or a high school for virtue, in the name of Heaven, 
should everybody, who can be excused, set out. But, 
alas ! wisdom and virtue are not so cheap. They are 
not goods sold in the market. I have not found them 
among the manufactures of any country I have visited. 
Most men seem no better or wiser, no more eloquent 
or devout, no more able or useful, after they come 
home than when they went away. 'Tis true as when 
the classic poet wrote, " The sky, and not the mind, 
they change who run over the deep." A great dis- 
play, a vast field of knowledge, no doubt, it is to be 
shown all the kingdoms of the world and the glory 
of them. But nothing in them all countervails the 
Saviour's declaration, that the kingdom of heaven is 
within you. Do you grudge any one his admission into 



14 



so grand a theatre, to observe this stupendous play 
enacted by nations beneath the sun] Do you pine 
and murmur that you are fastened to your task, which, 
losing all spiritual regard and divine anointing of 
your vision to perceive the value of common things, 
you have, with melancholy degradation, come to 
regard as but grinding in some mill of the Philistines, 
while he wanders at will % Let me tell you, if the two 
must be compared, an infinitely greater boon is in 
your task than in his wandering, and more joy from 
your affections than his chance inclinations. 

Yes, my friends, this is the simple report I make to 
you, that the moral nature, with the loving heart, in 
the actions they prompt, alone can bless, transfigure, 
and glorify our human life. I saw a woman on foot, 
amid the slopes of Northern Italy, leading along by 
a halter of rope an ass, on which sat her pale, con- 
sumptive son, — he in his youth, she in her age ; and, 
as I reclined well at ease in my coach, and, through 
the sunny air, gazed at the tremendous snowy peaks 
beyond, I thought them more blessed in their way of 
travelling than I in mine ; for I was reminded of the 
spirit of him who once travelled likewise in Judea. 
I saw a man coarsely plastering the posts of a little 
building in the great commercial city of England; 
and, after the hard day's toil, he surveyed his humble 
work with a sort of satisfaction illumining his face 



15 



that I could not remember to have derived from York 
or Milan, Cologne or Strasburg. It was the moral 
satisfaction of -faithful effort to do his part for the 
improvement of the world. I talked with one, 
bronzed with all the climates of the West and the 
East, looking like a column of strength, proof against 
any kind of dissolving or harm. I ventured, however, 
to congratulate him on his coming back to his home. 
" Ah, sir," he answered, " but to a home how altered ! 
— my family broken up, my kindred gone, my mother 
vanished unseen!" These feelings about home are 
deep, I murmured forth, as he came to an embarrass- 
ing pause. " Very deep, sir," he rejoined; and rose, 
and walked away. In the far-off city of Salzburg, 
alone in my room, my companions out, I listened to 
the chimes of peculiar sweetness and pathos, that, 
from the belfry there, ring out tune after tune, in 
melody unrivalled, through large part of some of the 
passing hours, till they seemed sounding on to me 
from five thousand miles away ; and those airy, invi- 
sible notes, better than could the touches of any 
pencil, gave me, full and clear, the colors of my abode 
and birthplace and dear native land. I leaned to 
read the letters, those little messengers, that like a 
bird of the air carry the matter, and so surely sur- 
mount the billows and scale the summits of the globe, 
with tidings from our beloved, whose preciousness 



16 



none but those who have been far away can under- 
stand, pursuing their swift path undaunted, day and 
night, as though, in their cold tissue, they bore a 
flaming fire, kindling human hearts to responsive 
glow through the vastness of the globe. While I took 
my share of the vital heat they circulate through the 
massive frame of the world, tributes from my eyes, 
pure, I think, though I would not be presumptuous, 
as libations that old worshippers poured upon their 
altars, flowed out, as the mingling, a mixture that 
will not be despised, of earthly sympathy with grati- 
tude to God. As these pictures of real life asserted 
precedence in my soul of all that adorn the ample 
galleries of the old world, I cried out, in solemn invo- 
cation, — " O duty, — duty, that hast thy seat in the 
divine Mind, and art born of the everlasting holiness 
of God, — duty, whose root is planted deepest of all 
things in the soul of man, — bind me, too, and rebind 
me with thy cords ! Set for me, to the end of my 
life, thy daily stint again, and consecrate me to my 
Maker's service in that of my fellow-men! Yea, 
rather than all smoothness and comfort, lay, I entreat 
thee, upon my shoulders thy rough benediction, if 
only thou wilt let thy peace, that passes under- 
standing, be in my heart ! And O love ! duty's com- 
panion, before the glories of the world, I choose thee. 
From the ends of the earth, I come back to thee. I 



17 



pray thee inspire once more my breast, and set me in 
thy complete circle. I implore thee not to move 
others' hearts towards me, but my heart towards oth- 
ers ; for, made to thrill at every sigh of good will, and 
tremble at ever motion of kindness, I know it is not 
safe to be loved, without loving an over-proportion in 
return. Grant me, therefore, thy spring from the 
infinite Goodness, to be in my bosom, with its pure, 
spontaneous, eternal stream ! " 

For myself, brethren, in this comparison, I know 
very well what I leave abroad, and what I come to 
at home. Incomparable scenery of mountains and 
gulfs ; matchless buildings, to whose vast solidity all 
our edifices seem ephemeral insect-formations ; works 
of beauty, in oil and marble, to whose standard 
nothing here makes any approach ; natural and artis- 
tic lustres gleaming out, just glanced- at and passed 
by, — for nobody who travels for a few months, 
though he may boast the extent of his course and the 
many points it has taken in, gets more than a glimpse 
of the inexhaustible beauty, taking in but as a drop 
of the sea; with many other things of fame, almost 
within grasp, yet unvisited; beside all the allure- 
ments, to an intelligent observation, of diverse nations, 
customs, and institutions; all these things I leave. 
And I come to a post of severe and unremitting labor. 
I come to visit the sick. I come to cheer, if I can, 

3 



18 



the sorrowful. I come to help the heavy-laden. I 
come to stand by the old, the weak, the sinking. I 
come to eke out others' infirmities, as far as any 
strength I have will go, and to clear up others' doubts, 
if any faintest ray of light I am able to shed will do 
it. Beds of disease, coffins dressed for the tomb, 
chambers of mourning, confinement, and want, will 
furnish the scene and the drapery for which I 
exchange whatever is grand and graceful in Tyrolese 
lakes and Swiss summits, with whatever there may be 
of dignity or gayety to admire or participate in the 
chief cities of the world ; while almost the only alter- 
nation I expect from this kind of social occupation is 
hewing out, with solitary sweat, in patient privacy, 
for your further edification, some little stones from 
the everlasting quarry of truth. To all this work, let 
me add, the very warmth of your welcome, with the 
well-reciprocated cordiality of your regard, only binds 
me with greater closeness ; thus casting, with the first 
steps again my feet took in the sanctuary, no light, 
sunny pleasure around me, but sober shadows on my 
brow. Yet I have not one regret to utter. I have 
not the first complaint to make. Calmly I prefer the 
task to the pleasure. I love my business more than 
my entertainment. I magnify my office beyond all 
the boastings of any pilgrimage, though to the very 
gates of the sun. And my home, — oh ! I set my home 



19 



above all the haunts of strangers and the proudest 
and most eminent sites of the globe. Wherefore have 
I returned so soon, against your kindly permission and 
many urgent requests that I would abide beyond 1 ? 
Because I did not want to stay any longer. Had I 
used your large allowance to pitch my moving tent 
season after season away from my connections of ser- 
vice in my place, I know, even I, in my humility of 
powers, should hear the voice that thousands of years 
ago startled the rocky echoes of Mount Horeb, — 
" What doest thou here, Elijah V 

Justly to balance my general argument, I must not 
omit to say, of the relative claims of home and travel, 
that I have considered these two as ordinary, conti- 
nuous modes of existence. But I am, of course, aware 
that travelling is commonly but a rare and brief 
exception to the domestic state; and that its occa- 
sional interval in the cares and endeavors of life may, 
to laborious and earnest men, be a season of unspeak- 
able value for health, refreshment, instruction, and 
preparation to greater vigor and usefulness. To a 
quiet and affectionate nature, indeed, it is no very 
pleasing thing to be for ever pushing on ; mixing in 
the noise and bustle of hotels ; arranging with agents 
and conveyers ; calculating foreign coinages ; stammer- 
ing strange languages; braving heat and cold, rude 
and stormy weather ; clinging as a perpetual appen- 



20 



dage to a passport, — although, thank God, not 
in dear old mother England any more than in 
our own precincts ; looking after and lifting, and 
counting pieces of baggage ; remembering a thou- 
sand things of purely material quality; a sudden 
unskilful financier binding gold and paper money 
round his body, and having a petty anxiety of detail 
and routine for ever tied to his soul. But all these 
are but the disagreeable means of compassing great 
and precious ends. Those most sensitive to the 
trouble and inconvenience may be most susceptible 
of the benefits; for suffering often burns lessons 
deeper than they can be impressed by joy. You 
become a fifth wheel to the carriage, worn and bruised 
and restless, in order that you may roll on into beauty 
and sublimity, once seen never to be forgotten; an 
inalienable possession, to delight with unfading charms 
the memory and stream forth richly into all future days. 
Well, in the old Bible, is it said that there is a price 
for knowledge. Rightly to travel is to pay a dear 
price to purchase a great privilege and pleasure, — to 
be taught what might never be communicated by 
books, even the greatest and wisest. The intellectual 
nature, long sunk perhaps in the dull rut of mechani- 
cal conduct, receives from it an emancipating shock. 
The whole man experiences a revolution, sundering 
that power of habit which puts a new coil of its chain 



21 



around us with every advancing year. A kind of 
regeneration goes on in his thoughts. Weaned from 
local prejudices and provincial peculiarities, he may 
begin a new life of reflection with more vivid imagina- 
tion of his relations, and truer devotion to a discharge 
of the tasks they impose. All this, however, provided 
strictly that to realize it be in his aim. If he goes, 
in the vulgar saying, merely to have a good time ; to 
spend the money no charity could ever win from him ; 
to get rid of the load of idleness under which he 
could not tell what to do with himself; to eat and 
drink, and keep the company of the slothful and dissi- 
pated ; to sit at his cups or his cards while the richest 
and rarest charms wait unregarded without, the ocean 
tossing, the river rolling, the mountain soaring, and 
picture and statue shining to solicit his attention, 
otherwise engaged, in vain, — then is he not furthered, 
though he measure all the parallels, and traverse 
every meridian, but substantially the same worthless 
creature everybody knew him before he started. But 
if he have a cultivated sensibility, or what the simple 
Scriptures call a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and an 
understanding heart ; if he is taking only a vacation 
from serious duty in temporary absence ; if he remem- 
ber that, at home or abroad, the first duties of a 
human being remain the same, — to repent of his 
errors and do God's will, and multiply the amount of 



22 



human happiness ; and if, in all his way, he seek to be 
taught their wider fulfilment, — he will experience in 
his entire frame of body and mind an extraordinary 
profit for all coming time. A needless giving-up of 
home to roam the world for self-gratification evinces 
only an ungenerous nature, that will lose humane 
moisture at every step. But they who, from all their 
career, gather wealth for their homes and their fellow- 
creatures, — -as I am glad to believe a considerable 
proportion of travellers do, — are blessed pilgrims and 
righteous sojourners with them of old. 

With such considerations to modify the warning 
strain, and follow upon the more important sugges- 
tions of this discourse, I freely acknowledge that I 
cannot look with an evil eye on this spectacle of the 
travelling world, which becomes ever more wide and 
mighty with every successive modern year. Indeed, 
the best of all reasons, however we may speculate, are 
in the very inclining of our nature ; and, if man has a 
strong and irresistible tendency to rest, he has another 
strong and irresistible tendency to motion. The child 
loves to lie still in its mother's arms. But, as soon as 
it can use its limbs, you will see it make earnestly and 
bravely, though tottering, for some object on the nur- 
sery-floor. This is the beginning and signal of all 
travelling ; the exact type of the feeling with which, 
in the infancy of the race, the adventurous Phoenician 



23 



steers his bark round the promontory, or the Indian 
puts forth his caravan across the desert, — till upon 
progress comes intercommunication ; and, upon inter- 
communication, commerce ; and, upon commerce, the 
breaking up of barbarism, and the colonizing of 
remote borders; all that we call civilization, with 
wave on wave of influence, finally reaching a new 
world, bringing up to play its part the generation we 
belong to, and wondrously at last sending back the 
pilgrim, who once sought here the disclosures of the 
setting sun, to explore Asiatic territories, and find his 
fortunes in the oriental cradle of the race. 

Having offered admonitions and criticisms, such as 
I thought to be required, I will therefore take care not 
to offend, but rather pay homage to the genius that 
has so altered and improved the sphere, and has 
brought in such wonderful inventions to serve his 
purposes, using half the means of the race for mere 
locomotion, to get from one point to another, and 
spreading myriad wings to second in its flights the 
winged soul, — for, as Plato reasoned and Homer 
sang, the soul has wings ; and, if it crave rest, in the 
somewhat paradoxical language of the Psalmist, it 
would " fly away, and be at rest." So, homage to the 
genius of science and art, that, to its corporeal weight 
and slowness, adds the pinions ; nay, in chariots of 
fire speeds it at its will, and on revolving wheels, 



24 



through opposing wave and breeze, bears it on to 
conquer difficulties in token and presage of its univer- 
sal victory ; drawing aid for it by a million threads, 
without confusion, through the circle of the earth ; 
placing one creature in this position and another in 
that, by hills or in valleys, in cities and along shores, 
as though nature's own carriage were employed, with 
a lordlier privilege than ever belonged to princes in 
cars of silver and gold, to transport all her offspring 
to their several destinations, with the power of gravity 
and the precision of light. No, I will not insult, but 
speak fair to, the rising genius, that I and we all are 
so indebted to ; the genius which, as I am well aware, 
the foremost nations of the world have principally 
cherished and obeyed ; which England so much, and 
now America no less, if not even more, it is said, fol- 
lows. I will not, with any disparagement, call in doubt 
the predominating beneficence, in our age, of his 
reign. Only let the genius allow me to put my home 
first, to prize it beyond all his excursions, and return 
to it, from the ride he gives me, as the settled choice 
for peace and gladness of my soul. Nay, — - so far from 
really intending to do any despite to this fine bene- 
factor of the motive force, I propose, God willing, in a 
short series of discourses, to unfold to you some of the 
lessons which, through its mediation, I seem to myself 
to have learned respecting the beauty of the world, the 



25 



achievements of human art, the demonstrations of reli- 
gion, and the nature, history, and destiny of mankind ; 
gathering out of the mass of my impressions such as 
may appear fitted to the proper style, and solemn 
design, in the light of God's word, of pulpit address. 

Meantime, only let me, like the dove that flew over 
the primeval deep, rejoice in my return to the ark, — 
the ark of my house, where I desire to live and die ; 
the ark of my church, where I see the people whom 
I love and honor, and am willing to be spent for ; the 
ark of my country, which, though, like Noah's ark 
and every earthly structure, it contain of all kinds, 
clean and unclean, is yet a refuge and breathing-spot 
for wanderers from the whole waste of the world; 
which feels to the sole of its children's feet as does no 
other soil beneath these covering heavens ; and the 
filial love for which, if it can be increased in a true 
American's bosom, is increased abundantly by all he 
sees in every other nation and kindred and tribe and 
tongue. 



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